Entrepreneurship

Earlier this week, we introduced you to the True Body Products founder Janice Shade, who was considering whether to expand her company by adding a scented line of soaps in response to a request from her retailer Whole Foods. We asked for your thoughts, and you responded with lots of helpful and passionate comments.

Surprisingly, to me anyway, many of those comments took aim at Whole Foods. Most of the anti-Whole Foods sentiment could be traced to my reporting that Whole Foods planned to pocket the additional profit resulting from an across-the-board price increase on all soaps. Ms. Shade says there was some confusion about that and that she and the retailer have not yet had that discussion.


During our most recent conversation, Ms. Shade also said she found your comments “incredibly helpful.” She particularly enjoyed the inspirational video recommended by reader Jon Polin. “It was awesome,” she said. The comments urging Ms. Shade to stick to her values resonated strongly with her. “They mirrored the sentiments of people in my own network,” she said.

Last fall, Ms. Shade sat down with her advisory board to resolve the line-extension issue. As she considered her options, additional concerns cropped up. For example, she worried about how her branding would be affected by the addition of a scented line. “People love my clear, communicative packaging,” she said. Things would become more complicated, she feared, if she were forced to introduce another element into her package design to broadcast a new feature.

As stated in part one of this story, Ms. Shade also wondered if True Body would alienate loyal consumers if it branched into scents. “Lots of people are allergic to even 100 percent pure essential oils,” she said. “The most ardent and positive consumer feedback I get is from people who are happy to have found an unscented bar soap.”

While Ms. Shade worried about Whole Foods’s reaction if she chose not to offer a scented line, she understood that the...